Xinhua’ s Systematic Plagiarism

The Local in Sweden has a fine post today about the Chinese news corp. Xinhua copy-pasting stories from abroad:

Yesterday The Local had this story:

Professional boxing has been illegal in Sweden since 1970, but it could be time to start booking ringside seats after the new Martial Arts Delegation has its first meeting in Örebro today, Dagens Nyheter reports.

…compare it with this from Xinhua this morning:

Professional boxing has been illegal in Sweden since 1970, but it could be time to start booking ringside seats after the new Martial Arts Delegation has its first meeting in Orebro, local media reported on Wednesday.

-And it goes on like that for more that 10 lines. But that is not all. The Local did some researh at Google News to find out if this had happened before and the result was kind of surprising:

“Xinhua have also plagiarised us in this article about Saddam Hussein, (The Local’s article), a piece about the elections (The Local’s piece), and in this piece about whaling (The Local’s piece). They’ve also done it here (TL’s piece), here (TL’s article), and here (TL’s article).”

Getting information from other news sources is a part of the editorial process, but simply stealing parts of articles without giving credit to the source is at best below standards. At worst it is a criminal offense. Shame on you Xinhua.

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